Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to methods and systems for determining location of an entity and more particularly to using location information as an attribute of a presence profile.
The physical location of a device can be determined in a number of different ways. For example, the location of a mobile device communicating via various wireless technologies can be determined by triangulating the wireless signal between antennas, cell towers, access points, etc. In other cases, technology incorporated on the handset can be used to determine location. For example, many mobile devices now incorporate a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver that can be used to determine the device's physical location. In other cases, a tracking signal, or data entered by the user may be used to determine the device's location. Furthermore, various standards for determining and utilizing location information for a mobile device have been established. For example, various standard bodies such as 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2(3GPP2), European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Parlay, etc. have established technologies for determining location of a device and Application Program Interfaces (APIs) for acquiring and utilizing such information. That is, these models rely on location information determined by one or more elements of the network, for example by triangulating a wireless, determining cell location, determining access point in WiFi types of systems, querying or submitting technology such as GPS incorporated on the device, or by another method, and provided to other elements of the network through the standard API defined for that network or technology.
However, even with GPS, there are no models to directly expose this location information to an application of a server or other device. That is, the use of the location information is often based on local applications on the device (e.g. a navigation system) or submission by a local client of the location as an argument to a request to a server (e.g. as a field in a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) post or web service request). However, none of the current techniques for utilizing location information really provide a clear programming model for managing and using location, notifying applications, filtering the information, etc. That is, none of the current techniques provide a generic model for managing and utilizing location information regardless of how or from where it is obtained. Hence, there is a need for improved methods and systems for determining location of a device and/or entity and methodologies for using this information in applications regardless of wherever and whatever these applications are.